Greetings

Think India Aaina is delighted to come up with yet another initiative, named "SANGATKAR", bringing forth you all kinds of Indian artforms whose presence is diminishing over time.

Today we'll throw some light on Chaturanga.

Chaturanga is believed to be the earliest form of today’s chess. It is an old Indian two-player board game tracing back to least 1,500 years ago.

‘Chaturanga’ roughly translates to “four limbs” in Sanskrit – which were infantry, elephants, cavalry and chariots.

Similar to Chess, Chaturanga portrays a war between two armies. Each of the pieces represents one of the four divisions of the Indian army. Although, accurate rules of the game are unknown, Chaturanga allows the player to continue the game even when the ‘rajah’/king has been lost

It can be assumed that the complexity of the game led to the game being modified by many and took over the form we see today as “chess”.

Regards
Team Aaina
Think India